


Scrap

by YoGrossDude



Category: Horizon: Zero Dawn (Video Game)
Genre: F/M, Fluff and Humor, Forging is Hot
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-05
Updated: 2018-12-05
Packaged: 2019-09-07 18:16:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,140
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16858954
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/YoGrossDude/pseuds/YoGrossDude
Summary: Erend is shirtless. Aloy definitely notices.





	Scrap

**Author's Note:**

> [godliath](http://godliath.com/post/175183195882/all-the-ereloy-i-stress-doodled-while-looking-for) is really just super super great

Forging keeps Erend from thinking, keeps him from drinking — well, for the most part, anyway. It’s home in a way the Claim itself never was: the weight of a hammer and the sharp smell of hot steel, the heat of steam and fire, the grainy feel of ash and dirt. It’s comforting, familiar as putting one foot in front of the other, something he’s known how to do since he could crawl on a soot-covered floor, and it’s always, always needed.

It’s good to feel useful, at least for a few hours, especially when you are, as a general rule, not.

He tries to go at least once a week, Vanguard business and Vanguard non-business permitting. There’s too many people there, in the mornings, and he prefers to work until he’s a half-dead but good kind of tired, so he takes it upon himself to be the only idiot willing to forge during the last few hours before the sun sets, right smack in the middle of the heat of the day. He buffs out scrapes from Snapmaw teeth and fixes studs on Vanguard steel and makes things, things he can hold, hammers and spears and arrowheads, and for a little while there isn’t anything but what’s in front of him. It’s nice and simple, in a way that most of his life isn’t.

The sun is just starting to dip low by the time he’s done for the day. Erend takes a minute to wipe away most of the sweat before it falls into his eyes and hangs the scorch-marked leather apron back on its hook. It’s sweltering out — standing next to the forge was nearly cooler — so he peels his shirt off, too, but before he can get anywhere close to the trough of water to splash his face, someone knocks at the door. And then there’s a crashing noise, and someone curses, and a smile spreads itself across his face because he’d recognize that voice anywhere.

He moves maybe a little faster than usual to yank the door towards him, and sure enough, Aloy’s right outside, crouched on the ground, muttering darkly as she picks up pieces of shattered armor and broken bits of metal and haphazardly tosses them back into an already overstuffed crate.

Erend leans against the doorframe. “Need help?” he drawls, with a lazy, easy grin.

“Take that one,” she orders, without even looking up, jerking her head towards a second crate to her left.

Right.

“Nice to see you, too,” he says mildly, dutifully lifting the crate and bringing it inside. Aloy huffs a laugh.

“I wasn’t planning on staying long,” she says behind him, as he places the crate on a nearby workbench, and that’s just fine, really, “I stopped to pick up some supplies, but Dalga insisted that these had to get here —”

The rest of her words are cut off by a sharp inhale. Erend whirls around to see what happened, genuinely alarmed, and Aloy, who looks oddly bewildered but otherwise fine, says, “Arms.”

“Huh?”

Aloy’s eyelids flutter for a brief instant, and then the corners of her mouth turn down. “ _Your_ arms,” she says harshly, like they’ve personally insulted her, “What are those markings?”

“These?” Erend taps the circles near his shoulder, just to make sure they’re talking about the same thing. “Tattoos. Got ‘em right before we marched on Meridian.” He’s never told a girl he was the only one who almost passed out about halfway through, and he doesn’t intend to break that streak today. “Everybody who signs up for the Vanguard now has to get them. Ersa’s rule.” He grins.

Aloy stares at them a while longer, her gaze briefly flitting to his face before it settles back on the ground.

“Oh,” she mumbles, very deliberately gathering up another handful of metal and spilling it into her crate. She does not look back up.

“Uh, yeah,” he says, weakly, in a desperate attempt to kill the stilted silence. It doesn’t work.

Did he miss something? It’s been ten days, now, since he’s last seen her — not that he’s been counting or anything — and last time she was here, he didn’t think he’d done anything particularly stupid.

At least, he’s _pretty sure_.

“Not sure what Dalga found so urgent about this stuff,” Erend says, poking through the contents of the crate, “All of it looks like scrap to me.”

He watches Aloy chew her tongue for a minute, glaring daggers at the rusty pile of metal in front of her.

“Of course,” she mutters, low and furious, and then with a quick, decisive motion, she lifts her crate up and strides past the door. It slams against the workbench next to his with a cacophony that makes him wince, and immediately Aloy turns and locks eyes with him, her gaze fierce and defiant, and his guts plummet past his boots.

“Did I...do something wrong?” he asks, half-hiding between his shoulders, and Aloy’s expression softens abruptly.

“Oh, no,” she says, pressing her lips together for a moment, “No, you didn’t — you haven’t —”

She cuts herself off with a frustrated sigh, turning away and leaving him completely and utterly baffled, and — wait, is she blushing?

Oh.

_Oh._

“Good to know,” he tells her with sudden cheer, not _exactly_ flexing when he crosses his arms over his chest. Still, the corners of her eyes widen ever so slightly; when he pulls into a brief and very necessary overhead stretch, one of her hands twitches reflexively at her side, her throat bobbing with a hard swallow and boosting his ego somewhere above the Spire.

Not that he ever thought he was ugly, but it’s certainly something else to watch a pretty girl — and the Savior of Meridian twice-over — light up like a forge-heart at the sight of you, ale gut included.

“You know,” he says, dropping an octave and leaning just a little closer — and she may kill him, actually, but it just might be worth it — “if you wanted to stick around longer, I could talk more about my tattoos.”

Her freckles disappear entirely under the brutal heat of her flush, but Aloy is Aloy, and a half-second of recovery is all she needs to scowl and very deliberately roll her eyes.

“Bye, Erend,” she says acridly, turning on her heel and striding out the door.

He bounds to the doorframe, calling after her back, and he can’t stop smiling. “No, _really_ , I could tell you all about —”

“ _Bye_ , Erend,” she replies over her shoulder, without missing a beat. Aloy walks into the night, but he can still make out her face in the dim flicker of the torchlight.

And if the memory of the coy, sweet smile he sees there has him giddily staring at his ceiling until he finally forces himself to sleep, well, that's just _fine_.


End file.
